October 6, 2017

Anyone who does business with __ is complicit. And deep down you know you are even dirtier. Cleanse yourselves.

Do you see how that's different from, say, "As always, I stand with the brave survivors of sexual assault and harassment. It's not your fault. I believe you" (Brie Larson)?

Rose McGowan calls everyone to a higher level of morality. Here's a picture of her with Harvey Weinstein:

I think Weinstein is part of a system that uses some people and rejects others and that extrudes a commercial product that we've been consuming with insufficient attention not only to the suffering entailed in its manufacture but to the unwholesomeness of the product we allow to infuse our brains. Movies reach us on a deep level, they invade our consciousness, they shape us and the culture around us in unknowable ways.

I would not eat food that came from a questionable location.

And deep down you know you are even dirtier. Cleanse yourselves.

ADDED: I'm going to start following Rose McGowan on Twitter. I just found this from 2015:

casting note that came w/script I got today. For real. name of male star rhymes with Madam Panhandler hahahaha I die pic.twitter.com/lCWGTV537t

One week after her tweet about the [Adam] Sandler audition... she checked her phone and saw an email from Innovative Artists, her agency — dropping her. "Like, 'We no longer want to work with you,'" she said. She felt a wave of "semi-panic — my ankles shook a little.... And then I was like, fuck ’em! Fuck you," she said for emphasis. And then I just wrote back, 'You're hilarious.' Because I thought it was hilarious." She also tweeted about it, of course: "I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up about the bullshit in Hollywood. Hahaha. ‪#douchebags ‪#awesome ‪#BRINGIT."

What bilge. There she is, doing what she does for a living, which is hang her tits out and leer. If you go into a brothel and ask for a job, what do you expect will happen? Someone is going to tell you to get out of those clothes and get to work.

No, Ms. McGowan, movies do not shape me or anyone else I know. The people I associate with are adults. We know movies are entertainment, or were at one time, and we know movies are fiction. We do not take our values from them.

Oh, really? So you are confident that the food you eat has never been touched by men who ask women for sex? That's the standard you intend to start applying to your business relationships? Have you considered that the pimple-faced IT guy who runs this platform may have made a ham-handed proposal to the cute chick at the next desk? What then, Ms. Complicit? I mean, if she said yes, then I guess you can keep blogging here. But what if she said no, and he asked again?

I want to understand this clearly. If you have any business dealings at all with any person at all guilty of any sin at all you are complicit. That seems to be the gist. And our host -- after highlighting McGowan's hypocrisy -- seems to endorse it.

If this is a "higher level of morality" then we should fire all the ex-cons, and turf them from any apartments they rent, and bar them from grocery stores, refuse to let them ride the bus. The Romans would ban outlaws, denying them food and shelter within their empire, but this goes even further, it covers the entire earth; it goes to even a "higher level of morality" than the Roman Empire even aspired to. Nifty.

rehajm: "The absence of the collective circle the wagons mentality is shocking. And suspicious"

Not really.

After giving multiple standing ovations over the years to a confessed sodomizer of children, perhaps the Hollywood set decided it was time to throw out some dirty laundry to appear "consistent" after their over the top reactions to Trump.

Not to worry though. Plenty more dirty laundry where that came from.

Who will be the first in the MSM to capture the child sex rings that the Hollywood types revel in?

No wonder the lefties here are always at great pains to defend the muslims and their child sex ring cultivation efforts among western youth. The lefties here know it is just a hop, skip and jump from talking about that to having to talk about Hollywood, a key redoubt of of lefty thought and action.

I actually have a certain amount of sympathy for the silly twats. I can easily imagine how viscerally repellent it would be to have Harvey Weinstein look at you in a certain way. But this is just the latest skirmish in the long War of the Women to Have It Both Ways. I wear a push-up bra, with an adorable little heart-shaped cutout over the cleavage. Shadow my eyes so they look like I'm half in love with you already. Paint my lips red, lengthen my eyelashes, powder my cheeks, and spend most of an hour preparing my hair, so I can come to the place where you earn your living and stand by your desk with my hip cocked so you can see the pantyline on my sheer skirt. How dare you regard me as a sexual object?

a commercial product that we've been consuming with insufficient attention not only to the suffering entailed in its manufacture but to the unwholesomeness of the product we allow to infuse our brains.

Meh. Harvey Weinstein is a monster, but he's also produced some of our greatest works of art. Those two things are hardly incompatible, as anyone who's viewed a Caravaggio may attest.

"It also calls the qualifications for lots of actresses into question. Not, who is the best actress. It's who was who gave the best performance on the Couch."

I think it would take a pretty good actress to convincingly enjoy sex with Harvey Weinstein. But it sounds like he doesn't really demand "convincing". He'll settle for watching him take a shower. Weird.

Fernandinande said..."Any evidence of force or fraud? If not, why care what these consenting adults do or don't do?"

Because clear back in the 60's, we allowed the federal government to begin regulating matters that are none of its business. That was the camel's nose, and now the camel is inside the tent, sticking that nose into every nook and crevice of our lives.

"Oh, really? So you are confident that the food you eat has never been touched by men who ask women for sex? "

You're misunderstanding the analogy.

I would not eat food that I thought was grown in soil tainted with toxins or packaged where the conditions were unsanitary. The food is bad and it could hurt my body.

A movie isn't eaten. It goes into your brain. The toxins are part of ideas. I don't know what's in the stuff. Is it propaganda for the subordination of women? I can choose not to consume it because I don't want to risk putting that in my brain. I can find other things to mentally consume.

I have no problem with a bunch of liberals who were outraged, outraged, I tell you! over Trump's pussy grabbing remark fighting each other. Pass the popcorn.

The idea that Hollywood stars and execs have the moral standing to preach to us has always been absurd, but that hasn't stopped them from delivering increasingly shrill lectures to the deplorables. Who will ever take Weinstein seriously again when he pontificates about Trump, gun control, or anything else?

That picture you give the URL for shows a very famous red carpet outfit from the VMAs in 1998. That was quite a while ago, but Rose McGowan wasn't a child. She was 25. Now, she's 40. She's open to the accusation that she took advantage when she could and only became outspoken later.

HW is just the latest version of a Hollywood standard, the movie mogul who likes young pussy. As disgusting as he may be, every man out there can understand why another man would want all the pussy he could get. And every woman can understand the allure of a man with power, even if he uses to abuse women.

Ah, but just wait until the pedophiles get exposed. There's not going to be any understanding or sympathy there. Then the folks who knew about HW but did nothing are gonna seem like saints compared to the ones who knew about the pedophiles & did nothing.

"I think it would take a pretty good actress to convincingly enjoy sex with Harvey Weinstein. But it sounds like he doesn't really demand "convincing". He'll settle for watching him take a shower. Weird."

Honestly, I think the Hollywood system has perverted nature which by definition enables perversion - these are men that as determined by nature, should ordinarily have no sexual interaction with the 9s/10s in Hollywood: Harvey Weinstein, Quentin Tarantino, etc. but due to the power structure in Hollywood, these weirdos with these bizarre sexual hangups get to act out their kinks on these young, attractive women. Which of course makes these perverts think they're even more powerful than they are.

It's a sick cycle and I hope the whole thing crashes down. Even though the loss of Hollywood means less American influence in the world, the people that run Hollywood have abused their power for so long and so badly that it needs to end.

Remember the scene in the Godfather, the horsehead scene? That was over a young, beautiful actress that the producer had casting couched and groomed.

"You don't understand. Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him. It'll make him a big star. I'm gonna run him out of the movies. And let me tell you why. Johnny Fontane ruined one of Woltz International's most valuable proteges. For three years we had her under contract, singing lessons, dancing lessons, acting lessons. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was gonna make her a big star. And let me be even more frank, just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, that it's not all dollars and cents. She was beautiful! She was young, she was innocent. She was the greatest piece of ass I've ever had, and I've had 'em all over the world. And then Johnny Fontaine comes along with his olive oil voice and guinea charm and she runs off. She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous. And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous."

" ... already we have crossed into Greece and Asia, placesfilled with all the allurements of vice, and we are handling the treasures of kings – the more I fear that these things will capture us rather than we them.”

Once in a while, you see a performance that just makes you wonder what the hell happened to give the actor his job. Just for example, Acquanetta was in several films in the 1940s. And she couldn't hold her own with Lon Chaney Jr.

"That picture you give the URL for shows a very famous red carpet outfit from the VMAs in 1998."

I am underwhelmed. I don't really watch movies or follow hollywood so I guess I could use some enlightenment. Why was she popular? I have seen half a dozen women in the gym that had much better bodies than that in the last month. My wife had abs and a much nicer ass when she was 25. I don't really see any girl next door there.

Gee I wonder why Harvey thought he could get some casting couch action from her. It is a total mystery.

Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd are somewhat marginal figures in Hollywood. Not coincidentally, they have been the most outspoken. Hollywood people love speaking out against injustice but not if it endangers a multi million dollar career.......Harvey's reputation will take a tumble. He's a towering figure and when he goes down there will be collateral damage. Right now there's no advantage for a major star to come forward and blow the whistle on Harvey. On the other hand, there's no great advantage to remaining silent or praising Harvey and his good works. Jennifer Lawrence is in a quandary. It would be so cool if next Academy Awards, she shows up and shoots his fat ass with an arrow. That could only enhance her rep and box office appeal...........Attractive hazard: I would guess that being a hard driving, opinionated prick gives you a leg up as a Hollywood producer. Too many scruples are not conducive to producing movies. By the same token, I would think that a young, attractive woman who's willing to go the extra mile probably has an advantage over her more chaste competitors. This has been going on for centuries. It's pretty to think that Rose McGowan can change the world, but when you mix unscrupulous men and ambitious women, they will scheme to turn the ways of the world to their advantage.

As what has been hinted Harvey Weinstein did to Rose McGowan is rape, which goes way beyond the sexual harassment that has been alleged by others, that's why she is an outlier. McGowan is likely using _____ instead of his name due to the confidentiality clause of her reported $100,000 settlement agreement with him.

It's an interesting legal strategy, goading him into suing her over violating confidentiality while at the same time maintaining some level of plausible deniability so that he will not sue.

To McGowan's point about complicity, it will be important to establish a Weinstein timeline.

Harvey and his brother Bob started Miramax as an independent in 1979, then sold to Disney 1993 for what Forbes has labelled a "relatively paltry $80 million". But that put them under the protection of the Mouse.

Disney pushed them out of Miramax in 2005, at which point they started The Weinstein Company. We don't know why Disney did that, but we can guess.

A lot of confidential files would have to be opened to bring that all out, and who knows what else might be in those files. Teams of Hollywood lawyers will be deployed to protect those secrets.

I like Rose McGowan and think HW is slime, casting couch crap's obscene, etc. But it’s worth noting that there is overlap between the film industry/playboy industry/porn industry. Some actresses make it big out of local theater, or after drama degrees at Yale, etc., but a # get their breaks because they have fantastic breasts/bodies and are willing to get naked. RM is one of these – very graphic nude scenes in all her early movies. Famous for showing up at awards shows wearing completely see through dress. Had her own sex tape leaked. And good for her! But just as I would not get too outraged by a bunny complaining that HH wanted to see her naked, I'm not that sympathetic to RM’s outrage at the A.Sandler request very offensive. RM got her break in the industry because she had truly fantastic breasts and she used those assets and graphic nudity to build her career. And then A.Sandler wants her to show up showing some cleavage? OMG!

No way that they'll be able to hide in France, make lots of movies and get nominated for lots of awards.

But Polanski was "furriner", & furriners in France do sicko things. We all know that. And, while Polanski may be defended in the offices of Hollywood, no one in Hollywood is out there pushing the product of this "legendary auteur". He's too toxic for the American public & they know it.

Polanski's perversions are one thing. Finding out that the male director of your favorite movie likes to have pool parties with naked teenage boys is something else again.

Ann, what about Chinatown? Polanski was/is a world class asshole (read police report of his raping the 13 year old at Nicholson's house; 3 years after ChinaTown but doubt it was his first/last such conquest)), but he still can make great art.

"A movie isn't eaten. It goes into your brain. The toxins are part of ideas. I don't know what's in the stuff. Is it propaganda for the subordination of women? I can choose not to consume it because I don't want to risk putting that in my brain. I can find other things to mentally consume."

Well, yeah. I made that decision decades ago, when I took a girlfriend to see that filthy piece of shit "Clockwork Orange". Remember the hilarious rape scene? I don't know whether movies are propaganda for the "subordination of women". I mean, what is civilization, but the subordination of men and women? And for every woman who gets raped on the big screen, fifty men get killed, often in ways that are meant to be comic. What's that propaganda for? Of course movies are sick. And often disgusting. And the people who pay to watch them are, indeed, complicit. But frankly, if the only thing wrong with a movie was that Harvey Weinstein made the female lead watch him take a shower before he cast her, I could live with that. Might even be a good movie, there are a few. Omelets, eggs.

"we've been consuming with insufficient attention not only to the suffering entailed in its manufacture but to the unwholesomeness of the product we allow to infuse our brains. Movies reach us on a deep level, they invade our consciousness, they shape us and the culture around us in unknowable ways." We? Us? Our? Unknowable?

""Is it propaganda for the subordination of women?" That's funny. Because except for Sports and Action/comic movies, almost the entire Hollywood/TV entertainment product is marketed toward women."

No, that is not funny at all. I will assume movies are aimed at women (certainly many of them are). But propaganda is aimed at people who are getting persuaded to believe and emotionally bond to ideas and fantasies that they would not accept if they were clearly stated and offered to the guarded and rational part of the mind.

Subordination can be sold through propaganda. Subordination can be experienced as beautiful, erotic, heroic, etc.

"I dunno about y'all, but I can watch a thing and be critical of its ideas at the same time, without mindlessly and passively absorbing it.Is that unusual or something?"

Yes and no. Humans are complex. You can at the same time be critical of something and yet be unconsciously influenced by it. And then there are children and youths, who may not have yet acquired an alternative position from which to be critical.

It was a Roman custom, however, for stage actresses to go naked, or at least for part of the program - Cato of course disagreed.

"When (Cato) was watching Flora’s games, put on by Aedile C. Messius, the peopleblushed to ask that the actresses be stripped naked. When Favonius, a great friend of Cato’s who was sitting next to him, told him of this, he left the theatre, not wishing that his presence should interfere with the custom of the show. "

It's not just women who are subject to this, BTW. There are lots of stories of gay and straight actors subject to the casting couch.

Travolta explained how he learned to Stop Worrying and Love Transactional Same-Sex Liaisons: By accepting that Hollywood is controlled by “homosexual Jewish men” who expect sexual favors in return for career-related ones.

People who need power to satisfy their desires will seek out that power.

What's funny is that you have soaked so long in the stew called feminism that you apparently think "the subordination of women" is the worst possible thing there is or could be. Buwaya said it -- "The body count in the Iliad is incredible, and there are quite a few killed in the Odyssey in a comic, or at least an ironic manner."

And what is that propaganda for? At least no women were subordinated in the destruction of Troy. Oh, wait ...

I think Weinstein is part of a system that uses some people and rejects others and that extrudes a commercial product that we've been consuming with insufficient attention not only to the suffering entailed in its manufacture but to the unwholesomeness of the product we allow to infuse our brains. Movies reach us on a deep level, they invade our consciousness, they shape us and the culture around us in unknowable ways.

Men are less susceptible to movies.

I judge them by their best parts, meaning its noticed that there are places they could be a lot better or are even badly written. That's foreground to a guy.

When there's stuff that's really badly written, I bail out early.

Althouse, like all women, is interested in suffering. I'd suppose also disease and weddings. Women's films. Themes for women.

Letting in infuse your life makes you think less like a man, which is fine, but why unawares.

Good for her. People aren't "used". Everything is a trade and no is one of your options.

I think Weinstein is part of a system that uses some people and rejects others and that extrudes a commercial product that we've been consuming with insufficient attention not only to the suffering entailed in its manufacture but to the unwholesomeness of the product we allow to infuse our brains.

While likely true I don't think the output is the source of the problem. People want to be famous and the ability to influence who becomes famous is power. Power is routinely misused in essentially every circumstance it exists in. I saw this in the accounting business: an industry as far from movies as is possible. The people matter. We're going to crush Weinstein but that won't solve the problem, it will just be more circumspect in the future.

But propaganda is aimed at people who are getting persuaded to believe and emotionally bond to ideas and fantasies that they would not accept if they were clearly stated and offered to the guarded and rational part of the mind.

"I think Weinstein is part of a system that uses some people and rejects others and that extrudes a commercial product that we've been consuming with insufficient attention not only to the suffering entailed in its manufacture but to the unwholesomeness of the product we allow to infuse our brains. Movies reach us on a deep level, they invade our consciousness, they shape us and the culture around us in unknowable ways"

Exactly. Which is why I don't watch current movies. I don't feel like being brainwashed by Carney people. Everything we expose ourselves to influences us. I know that and I treat it with the seriousness it deserves

Ann -- The Hollywould people would bend over backwards to contort themselves into explaining away their abuse of young girls (and boys!). Just google "whoopi rape rape" where she tries to defend Roman Polanski sodomizing a 13 year old girl after plying her with quailudes and alcohol.

A movie isn't eaten. It goes into your brain. The toxins are part of ideas. I don't know what's in the stuff. Is it propaganda for the subordination of women? I can choose not to consume it because I don't want to risk putting that in my brain. I can find other things to mentally consume.

Ideas as poisons.

That's one of Plato's fixations. See "Plato's Pharmacy" in _Dissemination_.

I suppose we might ask, who is harmed if the part goes to the best courtesan, rather than the best actress? And the answer(s) would be, the better actress, the audience, and the studio. That is, the one person who is *not* a victim is the one who makes a deal that is kept. But the studio has a good case that its employee did not carry out his duty of loyalty to his employer.

I was watching a Spanish movie "Tirant Lo Blanc" (Vicente Aranda 2006), when it came out, which is of course based on the medieval chivalrous epic often cited in "Don Quixote". The film is not that great IMHO, but check it out. But I was piqued by "Tirant Lo Blanc" - Cervantes liked it, so why not.

I have never read the thing, so I went looking for it. It is remarkably "modern" actually.

"Is there anything you would like from me, Tirant, before youleave? Tell me if there is, for I will grant you whatever youwish."

"My lady," said Tirant, "I would only like Your Highness to do methe favor of giving me this blouse you are wearing, because it isclosest to your precious skin. And I would like to take it offwith my own hands."

So that tweet that got her dropped. Why not? What does she think her job is, on screen? I'd like to hear a definition. Because she apparently thinks dressing or looking a certain way isn't relevant to whatever the job is. How about sound? I sing worse than Russel Crowe, should tweet my outrage when I don't get the lead in The Pavarotti Story? Or athleticism? Can I pout if the call for the Gene Kelly Story says "must be able to triple backflip while holding a dog"? Dammit, wear a freaking toga for Julius Caesar LOLOLOLOL!! Or how about if I think the lines are a problem. "To be or not to be" is flabby! I am only going to say "To be or not".

Because all these things seem relevant to what a screen actor's job is. What have I got wrong?

That question is for Althouse, because absent a good one this woman is just a fool.

And why weren't tits galore a problem when she posed for the pic Chuck posted? Didn't she use her cleavage to edge out flatter but better actresses?

Let me explain. If you want to be a movie star, you have to be able to act. Not everyone can and if you can't, you can't be a movie star.

The other thing you have to be is good looking. Not ordinary good looking but really good looking. Remember, you are trying to get many millions of people to invest an evening and drive across town and spend significant money for the experience of looking at you. People won't do that unless you are really, really good looking. That's why George Clooney is a movie star and I'm not. It's too bad because I would like to be a movie star. But I can't. I'm not good looking enough. I'm not bad looking but I'm not good looking enough to be a movie star. Not even close.

So yes, there's "system that uses some people and rejects others". That system would reject me if it got a chance and it would reject 9,999 out of 10,000 other people. If it accepted ordinary people, movie stars would be paid $10 per hour.

And it's not fair, not even close, but there it is. That's show business.

While these valiant women risk career calling out sexism, will anyone dare to cross the Hollywood homosexual mafia, who prey on children? Or does their victimhood not deserve equal status because they're boys???

If you look at the very greatest art of Western Civilization, well more than half of it was created by morally degenerate artists. Under the Althouse standard, we should stop looking at and listening to it because it might somehow be tainted, and somehow taint us. It's always fascinating when American puritanism suddenly eclipses American freedom.

Earnest Prole said..."If you look at the very greatest art of Western Civilization, well more than half of it was created by morally degenerate artists."

You paint with a broad brush, Prole. Would you like to explain how you determined that, say, Rembrandt, was morally degenerate? Did he make passes at his subjects or something? Maybe he owned slaves? Islamophobic? Used non-biodegradable pigments? I'm fairly sure he didn't go to Mass very often.

The same actress who had an affair with a father of five, breaking up his sixteen year marriage, and convinced him to cast her as the lead in a big budget movie, then split up with him when said movie was not green lit? That's the actress leading us to a higher consciousness about sexual harassment? Okay.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

A Hollywood mogul sexually harrassed women? Not exactly a revelation. Yes fireable. Suable. Deplorable. But also in a way traditional. What I mean is this is not exactly a new thing. There have always been people that exploit the celebrity game, and there have always been those who will do whatever to get their big break. And people in positions of power act often act abusively. In politics. In industry. In Hollywood. These films do not finance themselves. That means as an actor you would have to sometimes work with sleazy people, and all you can worry about is how they act towards you. Weinstein financed numerous films by the biggest stars in Hollywood. Even if he had a bad reputation, if a studio is going to bankroll your film then you work with them. And if the head of the studio is a scumbag, you hold your nose and grin and bear it. Put it this way, if I was an actor amd Miramax offered to bankroll my film I would be more than happy even if I knew Weinstein was the biggest harassing pervert on earth. There are limits of course. But the choice of accept Miramax's financing or don't because Weinstein had a rotten reputation as a sexual harasser is easy. You take the financing and hold your nose. For anyone to pretend otherwise is a joke.

Point I'm making is that why the hell should any actress be compelled to address Weinstein's personal failings if they were not involved? That is his problem. And to pretend that even a big star should have just turned down backing from his studio is delusional. But again why are only actresses being asked to respond? Why not DiCaprio and others that worked with Weinstein? So having to navigate in shark infested waters, the actresses alone have an obligation to speak out, libel, personal experiences, basic gratitude for a good turn be damned? That is an ironic way of looking at it.

A cynical and sexist reaction: She hit the wall, passed her sell date, and NOW does not want to play the game, and wants to condemn those still doing what she did.

Tank, how is that any different than what Ashley Judd did?

In fact, I would argue that Rose is doing something quite different.

Ashley, also well past her 'sell by' date, now seeks Feminist validation by pulling a story, also past it's 'sell by' date to garner attention and sympathy because she isn't being cast.

"Sob whine...and he asked me to come up to his hotel room and as a pretty girl, I had NO IDEA what that meant and when he asked me to watch him shower...I didn't run from the room and call the police or the media...I just SAT THERE!"

Rose is calling BS. Ashley knew what was up, she knew what was up, Stevie Frigging Wonder could see what was up! So the lip quivering Ashley Judd is farcical in it's disingenuousness.

I have been thinking about the asshole I worked for a couple years ago. He had a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from some cow college in Canada, and he had been in the country for over 20 years, but he barely spoke English, and he had no idea how to solve the problems we were working on. He gave orders that couldn't be followed, blamed his mistakes on others, lied constantly, and would not listen to advice. He was abusive, petty and obnoxious, and took pleasure in humiliating his subordinates and making us miserable. I put up with him for six months, because I really wanted to work for that company, and I needed the money. I finally quit because the idea of kicking the little bastard down a flight of stairs was starting to become really attractive. Like, I would find myself thinking, "This flight of stairs would be perfect. I'll stop on the landing, and when he's two steps down I'll grab this railing, plant my foot between his shoulder blades and give him a good, hard shove. He'll land on his face on that step there, and then he'll flop on down to the next landing. If his neck isn't broken, I'll just ...". I could imagine the sound he'd make when his fat, ugly face hit the steel rim on that step, and I wanted to hear that sound. Time to quit, right?

I would a lot rather have just watched the stupid son-of-a-bitch take a shower once in a while. The shit you chicks get worked up about.